


Our second step forward

by Thalissa



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood and Injury, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, No Beta, Protective Miya Atsumu, mentions of arankita - Freeform, this is not as angst as the tags make it look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29312979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalissa/pseuds/Thalissa
Summary: “What’s your name?”, he asks at last, just to stop his brain from overanalysing a stranger.The chef of the night looks up, almost startled, like he forgot he was even here. Seriously, who forgets that a Prince is sitting next to you? Rin finds this funnier the more it goes on.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67
Collections: SunaOsa Valentine's Exchange





	Our second step forward

**Author's Note:**

> This is for you, Caw, happy exchange!!!! I hope you like it, I smashed some of your prompts together (they're my favourites too!) and I hope this is as a fun and pleasant ride for you as it was writing it for me. I also wanted to thank you, because for the first time ever, I smashed my personal 2k words barrier. Enjoy, happy early Valentine!!
> 
> I also want to say a big, big thank you to all the mods of the Exchange for the wonderful work!!! And especially for being extra kind and patient with me and my inexperience with this sort of thing.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING:  
> I chose to tick off "graphic description of violence". If you want an estimation, I feel like this fic is less graphic than the average crime show, but my experience is not a basis for universal comparison, so, please, be careful.  
> The first scene, in particular, contains blood and violence (but you can skip it and the fic will still make sense)
> 
> EDIT: as I'm posting, the ending notes are failing me, so I'm thanking you all in advance for reading <3

_When it happens, it goes like this:_

They’ve been ambushed, because Rin was so fucking _stupid_ to believe that the assassination attempts would stop for a while, after the last spectacular fail. Honestly, they all just needed a chance to breathe for a bit, that’s all. And he needed to show that the King was not shaken from these attempts, that life was going on like normal.

And that’s why he and Osamu are currently surrounded by bandits-maybe-mercenaries-surely-assassins here for his head. Although, surrounded is not the correct term: Osamu is slaying through them like they are replicas of his brother in front of the last cookie in the kitchens (and Rintarou has seen them fight for it a lot of times: it’s a bloodbath). 

Osamu is a skilled fighter, but close-range he’s lethal: he follows the flow of the melee as if it were a dance, punching and kicking and using his tantō to strike the killing blows. The blood shed blends with the deep crimson of his Royal Guard uniform, only staining the golden pins attached at the collar. Osamu like this is deadly. Osamu like this is beautiful.

Rin doesn’t have to see him to attest to this, it’s just a fact.

He’s currently fighting a tall, burly man with his face mostly hidden by dark cloth, their swords at a standstill. He disengages, leaping backwards as a dagger plants itself on the ground where he was standing just a second prior. It’s become a sort of a rhythm at this point: slash, block, jump over the enemy’s attempted swipe of his legs, evade the next dagger thrown from someone somewhere on higher ground, repeat. Osamu will berate himself for letting someone reach him, and Rin will roll his eyes. Honestly, for how much Osamu pretends not to be related to his brother, he’s an overachiever exactly like Atsumu.

He swipes his sword in a wide arc, to put more space between him and his enemy. There’s a thin leather fabric wrapped around the hilt, and he can feel its design imprinting on the palm of his hand from the force he’s holding the weapon with. At the next attack, he dodges right and slices the enemy’s left arm from shoulder to elbow, effectively making him drop his sword. He shouts and falters, then drops to one knee and protectively hovers his right hand on the deep wound. For good measure, Rin kicks him hard in his left temple, and the man goes down.

He turns toward the commotion that’s winding down, Osamu taking care of the last enemies still standing. The’ve been forced to split in the attack, maybe thinking it would be easier to get Suna like this (they were wrong), so they’re now standing opposite sides of the usual clearing they stop to, their horses already gone, frightened by the fight.

He’s breathing hard as he tries to run to his Guard, but another enemy suddenly blocks his way. Rin doesn’t even falter: he’s getting tired and the more he finds himself in danger, the more Osamu is going to calmly and cheerfully strangle him, so he has to finish this quickly. He feints a lunge and then sidesteps just to put his sword through the enemy’s right side. Last one down for him.

Rin looks up.

Maybe ten steps from him, Osamu stills, the last one standing over a dozen bodies. The sun rays filtering through the foliage paint him in an ethereal light. He’s breathing in huge gulps, he has a smear of blood on his right cheek and his messed up hair are plastered to his forehead. His ruined, deep red uniform is wrapped around him like flames that just scorched the earth, but can’t seem to hurt him. He’s beautiful like this, more so than ever. He’s regal like this, in a way that’s neither passed down by birth nor learned. (Rin would kneel before him in a heartbeat).

Osamu looks back at him, and relief washes over him. His shoulders lose the rigidity of the fight, and his breath calms down. They’re alright.

Then it’s the blink of an eye.

Osamu’s tentative, private smile freezes before it can bloom, and Rintarou immediately turns around. It’s an innate reaction, they don’t need words between them (and what does it say about them?)

There’s the hiss of a thrown weapon, and Rin finally, _finally_ pinpoints a petite figure who’s taken coverage on the branches of a tree, the one who’s been trowing daggers at him almost the whole fight. He knows, instinctively, what it’s going to happen, but the crystal clarity of this fact doesn’t let him raise his sword to deflect any faster.

“ _RIN!_ ”

… only, the dagger never finds its mark, and a second later, the figure drops down from the tree and doesn’t get up.

Suna blinks.

Osamu is directly in front of him. Materialised out of thin air. Half crouched with slightly trembling shoulders, tantō sheathed at his back, right arm still extended for having thrown a dagger of his own. Then he groans and falls sideways at Suna’s feet, the hilt of a dagger protruding from his stomach.

––––––––––––––––––––

“ _Rin_ ”.

For an instant, what he’s seeing doesn’t register in Rintarou’s mind. They were just too far from each other, and then, and then Osamu was— Osamu is—

“R-rin, I— _Go_ ”.

Suna drops to his knees, a mocking parody of a gesture Osamu has carried out countless times before. His hands move aimlessly over the deep wound that’s oozing more blood every second. He doesn’t— this can’t be right. Osamu can’t possibly—.

Osamu’s eyes are rapidly loosing focus, but he tries to grip consciousness with a manic fierceness. His pupils are the size of a coin, and Rin feels like he’s drowning in them.

“I hav’to— tell’ya, ‘have to— _Go_ “.

Rintarou gently shakes his head, removing a strand o dark hair from Osamu’s damp forehead. He parts his lips but no sound comes out, and for a second he’s terrorised out of his mind that he won’t be able to speak. That he won’t be able to say a damn thing to the man lying beside him, to— and Rin needs to tell him something too, this is all— and maybe this will be their last— Osamu is—

“You’ll tell me later, okay? You’re fine and— and you’ll tell me later”, he finally manages to whisper, his voice breaking a little more with every passing second. He needs to— They needto go back, and the everything will be— It feel like their time is slipping through the cracks of the earth, like between one laboured breath and the next, Osamu will dissolve in front of his eyes. Osamu has already passed out.

––––––––––––––––––––

_Before:_

“Your Majesty”

There’s a stranger kneeling before him, left knee to the ground, right hand to his chest, head bowed, in a perfect greeting to a royal. Yet his posture seems relaxed, his tone almost…bored? Like it’s perfectly normal to be kneeling in front of a prince at two in the morning. In a random, secluded corridor of the castle. Where said stranger shouldn’t be.

Okay, sure, Suna is a bit of a night owl (to the dismay of both his parents and his tutors) but this kind of sleep-deprived hallucination looks too real. Rin can notice the plain, dark clothes of the Guards’ recruits, and a mop of messed up, dark hair caught by the moon reflecting through the glass windows. 

He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind up a little to ask one of a dozen of sensible questions (like “who are you?”, or “what are you doing here?”, or more importantly “how did you end up in my private quarters?”) but what his already half-asleep brain comes up with is: “‘Your Majesty’ is my father, I am just ‘Your Highness’”.

Yeah, let’s go with that, totally the most important remark. Rin needs to sleep.

He is still processing his own sentence when the stranger looks up, and suddenly Rintarou is looking into two silver pools, crystal clear in the moonlight. The stranger seems to be around his age, an angular face adorned by a blank expression. Still, he can see a sort of amused glint dancing in his eyes, like he doesn’t even know Rin could get him punished just for standing there. Maybe he doesn’t care. Rin really doesn’t, either.

The recruit shrugs his shoulders, and he seems to lose all his formality, a foreign accent slipping into his rough voice: “Well, ’t least I tried”.

Rin snorts. He really needs to sleep.

——————————

The weird encounter with an even weirder recruit flies out of his mind as soon as it happens (Rin personally pointed him to the right path to the kitchens —to do who knows what, but again, who cares—, wondered how he even managed to slip past the Guards patrolling the area, decided he didn’t care, and finally went to sleep). Rin meets a lot of people during his days, attending diplomatic meetings as his Father’s heir, or simply strolling through the citadel during his weekly visits to the local market. He’s not a social person by any means, but he takes his role as the next King of the Inarizaki Kingdom as seriously as any sixteen-year-old boy could: as to say, he takes any chance he can to get away from his tutors, and if that so happens to make him lend an ear to the people’s problems or complaints, Aran would say it’s his laziness aiming for maximum reward with minimum effort. Rin would say it’s a personal talent of his.

But here he is, two weeks later, overseeing the Guard recruits’ training in a fit of boredom, and aforementioned stranger is tearing a hole into the ground with how much force he’s slamming his opponents with. Gone it’s the disinterested gaze or the slouched posture, now he’s taut muscles and sweat soaked shirt, sweeping the legs of an opponent out from under him, then twisting the arm of another. He moves with purpose, with precise movements and the strength to back even the more demanding moves up. Rin is, maybe, possibly staring. It’s been a while since such a display of… well,raw talent was seen here. 

“Something caught your eye, Highness?”

Rin turns around, and here he is, the last person who took the training ground to storm, a couple years ago, just standing up from a kneeling position. Aran ascended the Guards’ ranks quickly –but not surprisingly, considering his talent with both a sword and war tactics, or the easy, yet authoritative air around him, _or_ his killer smile that makes every maid swoon— and he’s been Captain for a few months now, finalising the new recruits’ training for the next Oath of Loyalty in six months.

“Not particularly”.

Aran’s smile widens, and really, Rin would like to reconsider ever becoming his friend.

“Well, then, maybe I shouldn’t tell you than I’m thinking about adding our new terror over there to your personal detail, after the Oath”.

Rintarou looks back to the field, and sure enough, it looks like a storm just passed through, leaving just one person standing. He’s breathing heavily, chin up, eyes closed towards the sun.

“So confident he’ll resist until the end?”

“Well, if that little demonstration is not enough, he’s got a twin brother here as well, and their competitive streak’d carry them anywhere”.

Rin guesses that’s one of those dynamics that, as a single child, he will never understand. Still, it must be something both fierce and strong, if it pushes the recruit that far.

“What’s his name, then?” He asks. Maybe he’s curious, maybe he’s so bored that he’s finding a melee fight interesting. Who knows.

Aran laughs, then, with a gracious _your Highness_ , turns away to go and split the recruits in pairs. Seriously, why does he even bother.

——————————

Okay, maybe he’s a bit curious. It’s just… somehow the days seem to blend into each other, lately. Wake up, study, meal, sword practice, diplomatic lessons, various meeting with his father and the court, another meal, repeat. He feels like he’s getting a bit lost in the repetitiveness of his actions, and the looming war on the horizon doesn’t conciliate his sleep. Kita-san’s reports are no longer boring, they are becoming steadily more worrying with the passing months, and that is putting a strain on his father, everyone can attest to that. Rin fears for his parents, reigning monarchs of a small, yet resourceful Kingdom, targeted by pressing foreign politics and incursions on the borders.

He fears—

A voice clears up.

Rin looks up and, sure enough, he’s standing on the threshold of the kitchens, for a second forgetting how he even got here. He meets two silver irises and—

Oh.

He’s been thinking about the very same stranger for a while now, if nothing else for his weird necessity to reach the kitchens in the middle of the night. He tried to test if that was a recurring occurrence, and sure enough, it’s half past two in the morning, and said person is here, behind the counter, with a knife on his right hand and a… is that garlic? On his left.

“Ye’ve been starin’ at nothing for a minute, there. Highness”.

His voice is smoother than he remembers, still with that foreign accent, and he adds his title like an afterthought. Rin represses the urge to almost smile.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. It looks like a good place where to start, since the counter is littered with cups, bowls, various spices and ingredients. Yes, Suna’s skills in regards of cooking are, for lack of a better word, abysmal. Even if he weren’t a Prince, he doesn’t think he’d have the faintest idea where to start.

The recruit —and, _really_ , Rin needs to ask for a name— looks down, apparently satisfied with having brought the Prince back to the real world, and starts chopping down the garlic. He’s as meticulous here as he was on the training ground. No wasted movements, only precise gestures.

“Don’t know yet, not really”.

“You don’t know?”

“I tend to experiment. As long as I leave th’place intact when I leave”. He gives the hint of a smile at that, passing on to chop a potato.

Rintarou finally strides into the kitchens, shaking his head a little. He won’t sleep well tonight, he already knows. He’ll only catch a few hours of sleep in the early dawn. Maybe he can distract himself for a little time now. Just to take his mind off things.

He sits on a stool and lays both elbows on the counter (if his mother saw, she would be so disappointed), watching this fighter-apparently-turned-chef move around the place like he owns is. And it’s… weird, but not in a bad way. He seems at ease here, moving from a cupboard to the next, reaching for a certain ingredient or the other. He looks calmer, somehow, without the cold, unstoppable edge that permeated his every move on the (mock) battlefield. He looks more settled.

“What’s your name?”, he asks at last, just to stop his brain from overanalysing a stranger.

The chef of the night looks up, almost startled, like he forgot he was even here. Seriously, who forgets that a _Prince_ is sitting next to you? Rin finds this funnier the more it goes on.

“Miya Osamu.” Miya finally says, then blinks, “Osamu’s fine. Wouldn’t want t’be paired with a c’rtain moron”. He sniggers, and his whole face is transformed by the expression. Suddenly, he looks younger.

Rintarou hums aloud, then remembers his conversation a week prior with Aran: “You have a brother, right? Your Captain told me”.

“Not if I c’n hide the body, then not anym’re”.

Rin huffs a real laugh at that, and _Osamu_ looks up, looking somewhat genuinely surprised by the reaction. Then he briefly smiles, too, and a dimple showing on his right cheek catches Rin’s eye. He shakes his head; the lack of sleep is really getting to him.

“Do you know what you’re doing, yet?”

“No. Yer Highness”.

“Mind if I stay until you do?”  
Osamu shrugs, not looking up for the bowl now in front of him, but Rin is looking at him, and he can see the side glances he sends his way from time to time, not displeased or frightened in any measure. Just… curious in return.

He’ll stay a bit longer, then.

——————————

Their meetings in the kitchens become a sort of weekly occurrence, when their daytime activities allow it. Rin discovers that Osamu made a deal with the head cook: he can use the kitchens at night if he wants, but he has to start preparing things for breakfast if he does so. Osamu says he doesn’t mind, and that he’s careful to stay up late (or early, depending how you look at it) only when he has a free morning from training). Rin learns that he doesn’t do things halfway, and that he’s really driven towards any goal he sets for himself, despite his laid-back demeanour. And even if he has any kind of second guessing, his brother eviscerates any insecurity by the sheer power of driving Osamu absolutely mad.

“I’m goin’ to break his _fuckin_ ’ nose”, Rin has lost count of how many times Osamu has said that to him, the proceeded to do so in the next mock spar against said brother.

The have a strange dynamic in and on itself, but from his understanding, they both seem to do just fine with it. They are a force to be reckoned with when they pair up, Suna (and the rest of the Guards) can attest to that. They also have taken to Aran like little ducklings, but Aran has charmed people far more difficult than the recruits’ two terrors, so that’s not surprising.

One night, he walks into the kitchens with a sort of troubled expression. Osamu doesn’t look up when he sits down, accustomed to his presence, but he does when Rin’s been silent for a couple minutes.

“Something on yer mind, Highness?”, he asks, and look at that, he only took roughly five months to grew accustomed to royal titles. Rin snorts.

“Do you believe in soulmates?”, he says in a lazy drawl, drumming his fingers on _The History and Theoretical concept of Soulmates, fourth edition_ , that he’s supposed to read for next week.

Osamu looks down to the book, then to Rintarou. He stares for a few seconds, and not for the first time, Rin feels like those eyes could strip even the most hidden secret. Osamu, in the months he’s known him, has shown himself as a no-nonsense guy. He doesn’t like beating around the bush, _especially_ when it cuts down his free time in the kitchens.

“What’s there t’believe?”, he grunts at last, getting back to mixing ingredients in a bowl. “It’s a document’d phenomenon. End of the story.”

And, yeah, that’s one way of seeing it. Soulmates teleportation is a rare phenomenon, but it does happen. It happens enough tho have four editions of the same book printed, apparently. No one knows what triggers it, but, apparently, sometimes developing feelings capitalise into people being able to teleport at each other’s side.

“It’s totally f’cking cheesy ’n crazy, that’s what it is” Osamu adds then, and yeah, that too.

It also feels like a mess waiting to happen, because developing feelings don’t always develop further, or people who are not supposed to end up together according to (in Rin’s opinion, stupid) internal politics end up being _soulmates_ of all things, and Rintarou is starting to seriously fear his next lessons about political alliances and _marriage_.

Also, his parents aren’t soulmates, like the majority of the population, but they still love each other and make each other happy in the way few couples (especially royal ones) do.

“It feels like a complication of matters”, Rin settles on in the end, and Osamu snorts.

“Of that y’can be certain’”.

They are both silent after that, Osamu happy to be mixing who knows what in different bowls of different sizes, Rin watching him, laying with his head on top of the old tome. He thinks he could fall asleep to the sounds of the many utensils Osamu is using, but he still goes on watching, entertained despite not knowing what the other is making.

At one point, Osamu looks directly to Suna, all the mixing sounds stopping: “All good?” He simply asks and.

Yeah. Rin doesn’t know why he was troubled by this. Maybe it’s all the nobles is age starting to get married. Still, his parents know that it’s important to have someone you love and trust by your side, especially considering he will be the next King. They won’t force any political marriage on him, despite (and they all know it) the stability it would bring to their small Kingdom. Rin is both grateful for this and ashamed to be grateful, but he’s seen it on some old, hateful monarchs, what the weight of a Kingdom can do to you (he’s seen it on his Father’s shoulders, at times) and he’s glad no one, in his family or court, wants him to carry that burden alone, in the future.

And all the soulmates thing feels unimportant, now. He’s not waiting around for something like that, just like his parents. Still, talking with Osamu helped, like it always does.

“All good”, he murmurs back, and Osamu lifts one corner of his mouth in a half smile directed to him. It feels like a victory of some sort.

——————————

“…I pledge my loyalty to the Crown of Inarizaki: I will serve this Kingdom with my whole strength, faith and honour. Until my last breath.”

Osamu is striking in his Royal Guard Uniform, the vibrant red hugging the muscular form of a fighter. Rin has the fleeting thought to wonder who else in this big room knows that his callous hands, that can hold a sword with such ease, are also skilled in moving with grace and elegance between pots and bowls. Surely his brother, and Aran, and the head chef. Rintarou doesn’t know what to make of this, of the fact that he knows something about Osamu that only three other people do. The thought comes and pass, washed away by Osamu’s loud voice that echoes against the tall, adorned walls of the throne room. Osamu is kneeling in front of his father, and Rin doesn’t know why, but he notices, there, in the slightly furrowed brows, in the slow cadence of his words, how the new Guard is trying to be formal and not stumble on his words, and he suppresses the urge to smile.

——————————

Their nightly encounters stop after Osamu’s Oath of Loyalty. Rintarou is’t upset by this, because now Osamu follows him around during the day, as a part of his personal Guard, and suddenly they can strike a conversation whenever they want, not just at two in the morning (or even later).

They’re both not too talkative, but they tend to coax words out of each other just by walking together, a simple remark here, a snort there, dry jokes that spur even drier ones. They talk in bits and pieces between one of Suna’s appointments and the next, and it could look like stilted conversation to the passing eye, but for them… it works. It also feels different from their nightly encounters: here, under the sun rays, their words seems to be heavier, like they could be able to leave a mark on the ground, next to their feet. They feel more…permanent. Like they’re not confined in sleepless nights anymore.

Visits to the local market are by far Rintarou’s favourite activity now. People still look at him a bit baffled, but after some customary bows and greetings, they happily let him carry on with his task. Merchants talk to him about their products, the year’s harvest, their hopes for a good weather next season. Sometimes people come to him with fearful looks and whispered murmurs, trying to ask about the situation on the borders, and Rin, despite his personal doubts and worries, appeases the various concerns, and people smile to him, more grateful than ever (sometimes he wonders if he’s only giving away false hopes, that a war will be inevitable, and that all this, one day, will be lost to a scorched wasteland).

But all this is the same as before. No, what’s different, now, it’s Osamu’s presence next to him. Osamu, who doesn’t give a damn about war politics or chess or the inner machinations of the court (Rin has seen him try to mask either distaste or boredom in more than one occasion) gets a kick out of talking about _vegetables and seasonal dishes_ with the food stand’s owners. One time he witnessed a thirty minutes animated debate of what’s the best ingredient to serve rice with, and most of it flew over his head. Rin doesn’t even know why he’s surprised, really.

Last week he was late to a court meeting because Osamu couldn’t decide what sort of new spice he wanted to buy. Rin, after a long, long hour of indecisiveness, bought a sample of each one.

(“Damn, we’re late. Why didn’t ya stop me earlier, Highness?”  
“I’m not in a hurry”, and if his Father was then a bit peeved, that’s for him to know).

Osamu just… seems to flourish when he’s talking about food, this is a constant. Either in the dead of the night, of in the busiest street of the citadel, he’s more than happy to fire off fact after fact on the matter, his aloof demeanour melting away under the warmth of his every word.

Few things make him so talkative, and Rin sometimes feels under a spell, unable to look away whenever Osamu opens up like this, like a rare flower that blooms once a year.

He’s just finished talking to a jeweller about her last days of business when, turning around, he notices that Osamu is not by his side anymore, but at the end of the road, crouched down in front of a little, crying girl. He furrows his brows and quickens his pace join them, catching up to them just in time to listen to the last part of Osamu’s speech.

“…tell ya what: y’stop crying an’ I’ll tell ya a secret”

Those seem to be the magic words: the little girl freezes for a second, then furiously tries to wipe away the tears from her eyes with one hand. She has dark hair tied up in two pigtails, and a floral dress stained with terrain. She also has a bruised elbow, and Osamu is currently cradling it between his hands, examining it carefully. Still, the promise of a secret seems to have captured all of her attention.

“Really?”, she asks, and she sounds both doubtful and hopeful, not trusting a stranger, but still intrigued. Rin has a sudden revelation that little children and court nobles seem to have the same understanding of currency. Secrets, go figure.

“I am a Royal Guard, ain’t I? An’ I’m under Oath to always be honest ’n front of my Prince. See him?”, Osamu fires back, pointing with a thumb behind him to Rintarou, like the damn royal garments he’s wearing could go unnoticed (yes, Rin still finds this funny, nothing’s changed).

But apparently they can, because now the girl is sizing him up and down like she’s just noticing him, pursing her lips the same way her mother does when she notices something unpleasant, and Rin feels uncannily under scrutiny. But then she smiles, showing two missing teeth, and looks back to his Guard.

“So you have to say the truth in front of the pretty Prince?”

Rin blinks, and Osamu snorts, loudly and very badly at that.

“Yeah, so y’can trust this super secret intel I’m gonna give ya”.

“What’s an intel?”

“Like, information, but it sounds more grown up like that, y’know?”

“ _Ohhhhhh_. Yes. _Yes_!! Please, tell me the intel!”

The little girl is now jumping up and down, one of her pigtails coming undone from all the movement. He tears are already forgotten, and more than at the ever-changing mood of children, Rin is staring at Osamu, who just put a big smile on a random little girl like it’s his new calling.

“Y’see”, the other goes on, unfazed “my Capta’n has a lil’ sister, a bit older than ya, and she just told me…”

“I can’t believe you just taught a ten-year-old how to kick other kids in the groin”, Rin snorts. He should probably feel more outraged that one of his personal Guards is going around teaching little girls violent means to end… whatever quarrel that child had going on, but then again, he’s talking to Osamu.

He looks to his right and Osamu is already looking at him, a rare grin pulling at the newest bruise blossoming on his right cheek (he fought with his brother. Again. Osamu won. Seriously, he could have taught that little girl so many worse things).

“Oi, she said some kid was makin’ fun of her, for bein’ a girl and not bein’ strong enough to defend herself. I jus’ gave her some pointers”, he answers, shrugging his shoulders.

“And ya’re laughing too, Highness”.

That he does.

——————————

“You’re good. With children, you know”. It’s not a question, and it’s probably a bit too much to deduce from one single extraordinary occasion, but Rin feels like he’s not too out of his depth with this assumption.

Osamu shrugs his shoulders, not looking back at him. He takes his non-question for what it is, a question he’s not required to answer, but he clears his throat anyway.

“…We’re orphans, Tsumu ’n I. We’ve been with a traveling merchant for a while, and we tended to end up in a lot of messes with the local children”, he snorts, and yeah, Rin can suddenly picture quiet, secluded villages ending up in flames.

“Sometimes y’have to take a stand and not let other children walk all over ya. Also, kickin’ Tsumu in the groin’s always been satisfyin’”.

——————————

The days go on. The situation on the borders doesn’t get better, but it doesn’t get worse, either. It’s a bit of a stalemate, and his parents are doing everything they can to maintain it that way and eventually defuse it, manoeuvring themselves in both internal and external politics, leaving for weeks at times for diplomatic visits.

Still, when he turns eighteen, they host a party. Rin doesn’t care much for it, but his parents insisted it required the proper celebrations, both to give the people something to gossip about and distract them from the growing unrest, and to properly introduce him into adulthood. Rin snorts. He’s eighteen, but he doesn’t feel any different. This morning, his Father ruffled his hair, and his Mother stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on his forehead. He feels… still a kid, no holy knowledge suddenly appearing in front of hm. Most of all, he feels cheated.

He’s on balcony of the ballroom, elbows on the banister, overlooking the citadel below. In the night, torches light up every corner of every street, and the people are dancing and chanting his name, wishing him an happy birthday. There are drinks, and music, and children running around, wild and carefree, and Rin think _here it is, what this Kingdom should look like_. Strong enough to have people laughing even in the middle of the night, streets always alight, reverberating with life, nothing holding them back. A safe and secure place where new life can grow, a challenge to whoever has ever tried to burn them down.

“My Prince”.

Suna turns, looking at Osamu kneeling in front of him. He’s grown up in the almost two years he’s known him. Now his shoulders are broader, filling up the Uniform, and his face is more angular, having lost any trace of adolescence. But when he looks up, his eyes are the same: crystal clear in the moonlight, a piercing stare that can freeze lesser men on the spot.

And still… and still, when he looks at him, sometimes Rin feel like he sees something else, there. But then he blinks, and Osamu is looking at him with the same, half bored, half uninterested look (unless it’s food).

“Something the matter?”, he asks as his Guard stands again, coming to lean on the banister next to him.

“Apart from the guest of hono’r not attending his own party, then no, nothin’ at all, Highness”.

Osamu is also getting more sarcastic as he grows up, or maybe now he feels comfortable enough to be snarky all the time. Rin doesn’t mind, as he smiles more often than not.

“I already said a couple of speeches, thanked all the guests for coming, mingled around the councillors and, by now, I know more about who is dating who than I ever cared”.

Osamu snorts at that, and really, he has one of the worst laughs he’s ever heard. He smiles reflexively.

“So, yer bored out of yer mind?”

“ _Yes_ ”.

Osamu hums at that, and for a second, he looks deep in thought. Then he smirks, and they’ve known each other long enough to know that noting ever good comes from that expression.

“So, hypoth’tically, ho d’ya feel about sneakin’ out?”, he asks, serious as ever, but the voice clashes with the grin he wasn’t able to suppress.

“Is it really sneaking out if I am the third person with the most authority around?”, he snorts back, but he’s already stepping back from the banister.

Osamu keeps his days interesting.

——————————

Osamu still cooks in the dead of the night, sometimes, and when he does, he takes Rin with him. He says it’s out of necessity, because he’s supposed to stand Guard in front of his private quarters, and if he abandons his post it’s as well as deserting, so he’d better _shut up_ and _come with me_. But, strangely enough, those nightly escapades only happen when Rin is already awake, staring up at the roof waiting for sleep that never comes. Rintarou is starting to see a pattern, and then he feels weirdly guilty for seeing one. Is it, is it really?

Sometimes he feels closer to Osamu than anyone, other times he feels like he’s hitting a wall made of smoke, and the vapour slips through his fingers, unreachable, just like Osamu.

——————————

“D’ya remember how we met?” Osamu asks out of the blue. They’re coming back from a council meeting, and the news aren’t good. Skirmishes are breaking the borders, and they need to send out troops to the outer villages.

“…Not really” Rin answers distractedly, because, really he doesn’t. They’ve know each other for almost four years now, and Osamu feels like…a constant. He doesn’t remember precisely how they met (just that they started hanging out in the kitchens), but just like with any new constant, he erased whatever weird calculations came before, and Rin struggles to remember the days when Osamu wasn’t there by his side, with his dry humour, his piercing stares, his quite companionship.

“Me neith’r. I guess it didn’t feel important, a’the time”.

And it’s true, a completely logical statement. Those kind of things only seem relevant when you look back, and out of all the important people in his life, Rin doesn’t really remember how he first met them, either.

 _But_ , a small, traitorous part of him whispers, _it is. It is important._

_——————————_

His parents are dead.

Assassinated three days ago, just outside the borders, as they were coming home from their latest diplomatic trip.

Various people explain this to him in broken, quiet voices, explaining how their Guard platoon was slaughtered as well, and that some bodies were hurt beyond recognition. Rin doesn’t hear them well, are they talking through some glass window?

He personally lights their pyres up. He stares at the flames that burn and stretch towards the night sky, trying to reach beyond the endless expanse of stars. They dance before his eyes, bright yellow, then deep orange, then crimson red, red, _red_. His parents loved dancing.

It’s a public function. He feels people crying around him. But the world seems to follow an unknown flow, and sounds don’t seem to reach him well.

He stares at the flames, fuelled by the night wind. He feels—

Empty.

Because they can’t— the can’t be—

They can’t possibly have left him.

When he was four, his parents told him, he ad a bit of a screaming phase: whenever either of them wasn’t in his direct line of sight, he would start screaming at the top of his lungs, and his parents had to hurry back to him from all over the castle just to calm him down.

At whom does he have to scream, then, to have them back? Will the night sky suffice? Who’s going to hear his pleas, and give them back to him?

The bright flames looming over him don’t answer, they go on burning and burning and burning, and he feels like he’s wasting away with them. _Please, let him waste away with them._

Time goes by, and he’s drifting away with it, teared to shreds that scatter in the wind.

A cloak is draped over his shoulders and— oh, he’s shivering. Trembling fingers move up to wrap the fabric more tightly around himself. He blinks: dawn is approaching on the horizon.

There’s a new presence beside him, and he doesn’t need to look to know that it’s Osamu.

They’re both orphans, now.

“I’ll stay here until yer ready to go inside. Tell me if ya want me to go”, Osamu murmurs, then he looks on, to the by now extinguished fires. Just the ashes remain, because they’re children of the earth that they tread on, and to the earth, in the end, they will return.

Rin doesn’t say anything, and Osamu stays with him.

——————————

He’s the King, now. People call him _your Majesty_ and they expect him to make the final choice about everything. He feels like a child who was just handed the power to do as he pleases and destroy everything in the meantime. He takes it in stride, but it doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.

Do people expect him to lead them towards a new sort of stability? Do they expect him to make their Kingdom prosper? Do they imagine him coming home, one day, with the heads of every single last bastard who murdered his— in his hands? Rin is a pinwheel with no wind blowing: he doesn’t know where to turn, and nothing is there to show him the way.

Osamu is still there by his side. Rin could have chosen more Guards, he could have changed his old personal detail, even, but… he hadn’t said anything. So Osamu is still therewith him, looking him struggle with trade documents he needs to approve and council meetings that go way over his head.

“What’s wrong?” Osamu asks one night, when he’s been looking at Rintarou look at the same parchment for more than an hour. His voice is rough, his expression apparently disinterested, but he’s holding Rin’s gaze the way he looks at a particular difficult recipe: he won’t back down.

“Nothing”, still, Rin tries, because surely, if he looks at this damn written nonsense for another hour, it will make sense.

There’s the sound of careful, deliberate steps, and then Osamu is in front of his desk, bending down a little to be at eye level with Rin.

“What’s wrong?”, he asks again, and this time, his voice is deeper, like he’s trying to reach the root of Rin’s unease and eviscerate it. His grey eyes look glacial, but Rintarou has never been scared of them. To him, they feel strangely comforting. He doesn’t waver, because he knows few things can slip away from Osamu’s focus, when he tries.

“…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Not here, not in anything else”, he murmurs in the end, and it sounds like a confession. People should not be referring to him, because he’s grasping at anything he finds to not to drown, how is he supposed to hold other people above the waters?

“Does anyone?” Osamu says, like he’s speaking about the weather. Like it’s a clear and certain fact that everyone goes around not knowing a single thing about what they’re doing on the long run and, maybe, maybe, Rin is not at fault for feeling like this.

“Ya try not to do yer worst today, ‘n then tomorrow, ’n then day after that”, Osamu goes on, taking the parchment from his hands and pulling it away.

“Not yer worst is still a startin’ point, and, well, if ya happen to do better sometimes, then good for ya, that’ll be a better day”.

——————————

He simply tries not to do his worst, day after day. It seems to work. He’s starting to get the hang of what rules and regulations need periodical checking, and how to make his council meetings actually productive, and not just old, cranky people screaming around (well, one time out of three, anyway). The Kingdom of Karasuno finally, _finally_ agreed to a shared commercial route, and they’ll dispatch their manpower, too, to make it safer. Little pieces start to fall in place.

Osamu starts to smile a little more. He smiles _at him_ a little more. He still smirks, snorts, grins, makes fun of his brother with the worst jokes possible, but now… there’s this private, little smile, too, that blossoms on his face when Rin does something he deems particularly “King-like”.

Just the other day, Rin was able to clear up a land dispute that had been going on for three years. When they were alone again, Osamu had smiled ad him, and Rin had felt like his skin was basking under the sun.

——————————

His hands are shaking. Or maybe he’s trembling all over, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t—

It’s been a year. Exactly one year ago, his parents— his parents were—

“Yer Majesty”.

And he doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand, why this is hitting him so hard _now_ , after a year, after all the—

Did their parents— was their agony short? Was Death moved to pity, and took them together, not letting one of them behind, if just for a few minutes more? 

Air is going out of his lungs but it’s not coming back in, and would his parents be happy, with what he’s doing with their legacy? Would they be disappointed? Would they hold him again, if he asked? Would they—

“ _Your Majesty_ ”.

—please come back because he’s not even twenty-two and he doesn’t know anything about how he’s supposed to give this Kingdom the stability it deserves and he wants them back so if they would just come back for an hour or ten or a month or forever Rin will give everything he has and then some because if he knew that the last time he saw them it would have been the very last then he— then he— he—

“ _Rin_ ”

He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He pants, again and again, trying to reign the first sob in. Because if he lets it go, he doesn’t know where the ending line will be. He needs to let go, just this once, he needs to break down so he can start putting back the pieces, but he doesn’t even know how to break down in the first place. He’s alone. His parents, his parents are— they are— A Kingdom rests on his shoulders, and if he lets go, every piece will crumble with him. He can’t afford to. But he wants it so badly. Just this once, just this night, he needs to let it all go. He wheezes, choking on his own saliva. He feels like he’s drowning. His hands grasp blindly for any leverage they can, because he feels an invisible force dragging down, and down, and _down_ , and he latches on deep red fabric as he tries to stay afloat and _don’t let me go don’t let me go don’t let me—_

Osamu holds him, and he doesn’t let go.

——————————

When he’s twenty-three, he turns towards Osamu and says: “Drop the formalities”.

Osamu blinks, then inclines his head a little, like Rin just said something particularly stupid: “What d’ya mean, yer _Majesty_?” And, really, no need for this kind of sarcasm.

“I mean, that you don’t need to be so formal with me, when we’ve known each other for so long. Not when we’re alone, at least”, he amends in the end, because, yeah, he knows it would call for raised eyebrows all around otherwise.

Osamu is silent after that. It’s Rin’s birthday party (the first afters his coming of age one), and Rin is hosting it just because he was manhandled into it by his council. _It’s time for you to start looking for a spouse, your Majesty_ , and _think about it as a way to reinforce foreign connections, your Majesty_. Rin doesn’t roll his eyes because he’s scared they’ll fall off from how much he’s been doing it all day.

They’re both on the balcony overlooking the citadel below, Rin laying with a hip against the granite banister, Osamu with his back to the view. Inside, people are dancing to the sound of a flute and some percussions, and the slow music drifts outside, carried by the soft nocturnal breeze. Osamu is, as always, in his Royal Guard Uniform, but with more golden pins on than usual, for the occasion. It’s the start of the year, but their Kingdom always leans towards a warm weather, and tonight it’s no exception.

Rin knows he’s not imagining things, by now. Sometimes, they stare at each other a bit longer than necessary, when they talk. Sometimes, Osamu’s gaze drops to his lips. Sometimes, Rin can’t take his eyes off the way Osamu manoeuvres his sword. But they never overstep, and so they go on circling around this… thing, one step forwards, two steps back, five or six steps sideways and then again.

“Okay”.

“Mh?”, he asks, distracted by his own thoughts, and when he looks at him, Osamu has stepped back from the banister.

“Okay, I’ll drop the formalities, so… dance with me” Osamu says, serious as ever. He extends one gloved hand, and looks at Rin like all the time in the world is theirs for the night.

Rin takes his hand, and he wonders if this is a step forward.

——————————

Over the years, Rin makes sure that his Kingdom becomes established in external politics, making so that it carries enough weight that other countries and realms will have to give a damn about it, if nothing else because a disruption in _their_ territory would bore bad news for them as well. He implements trade routes, he works hard to make sure that even the most distant villages from the capital are safe places where children can grow up and thrive, he opens a fraction of the port to foreign trade ships. So it’s not surprising, really, when assassinations attempts start to have him as a mark, too.

The first one is quite memorable for the sheer dumbness of the whole situation. It’s a lone assassin, maybe fooled by his young age and his relatively few years of power, and they shamelessly try to infiltrate his private quarters in a mid-summer night.

Osamu personally deposits the man’s body at his feet.

“For you”, he says, his voice made of pure ice, his eyes glinting with cold fury, some blood on his face, and to Rin, he’s never looked more unstoppable.

——————————

“Did’ya hear?”

Rintarou snorts. Oh, _did_ he hear, it was all the castle could talk about for the entire morning. At one point, one of the maids serving breakfast was trying so hard not to laugh that her cheeks were turning purple. He really doesn’t blame her.

“About how Aran almost got killed by Kita-san? Yeah, I did”.

Osamu laughs at that, carefree in a way that he rarely shows to people. They are wandering around the gardens in a rare gap in Suna’s schedule, Osamu at his side and still in uniform.

“It’s fuckin’ cheesy, bein’ teleported in yer soulmate’s bed”. Because Aran got teleported _in_ Kita’s bed, meaning _under the covers_.

“And, apparently, almost lethal”.

“Yeah, if looks could kill, Aran woul’be dead ten times over ”.

They both stop and hold eye-contact for a second, but that is enough to end up snickering together. It’s just too hilarious: only that morning, the kind yet serious Kita Shinsuke woke up with an arm around his stomach. An arm that was definitely not _his_ , that connected to a body, that connected to a face that was lying on his pillow. _Snoring_. A mere breadth away from him. Suffice to say, that caused quite the commotion. 

“Still, they look quite happy now,” Rin muses, because it’s true. Never mind the exciting start of their morning, or the fact that the they found out that yes, they _are_ soulmates, when Aran involuntarily teleported at Kita’s side (again) while the latter was having breakfast in the kitchens, they look…happy. Plain and simple. Rintarou has never seen Kita smile with such warmth towards someone.

“Well, one should be delusional not to see the lovesick gaze Aran parades ‘round Kita-san. It was a long time coming,” Osamu goes on, looking up at the sun almost directly above them. “Even if I think Kita-san would’ve preferred a good ol’ love declaration, and not Aran teleporting in his bed while sleepin’”.

“Is this how you talk about your Captain and Commander?”

“Eh, Aran loves my humor, he just pretends ‘therwise”.

“Somehow, I doubt that”.

Osamu shrugs, regarding him with a smirk that makes him look like more like his brother than he would appreciate. In the midday’s sun, he looks younger and more carefree, like the rays are actively melting his ever present serious expression away. Then Osamu holds his gaze, and he genuinely smiles, that private, little smile, that makes Rin’ head spin around.

——————————

“So, d’ya believe in soulmates?”

“I feel like we already had this kind of conversation”  
“Yeah, but now we have a fated pair right in our good, ol’ castel”

“Like you said, they were meant to be”.

“So, ya believe in that?”

“I’m not sure”, Rin says, but what he wants to say is _are we, if one of us just takes another, second step forward?_

_——————————_

And really, it happens gradually, and sometimes, Rin isn’t even looking. He gifts Osamu a tantō for his twenty-fourth birthday. Osamu teaches him how to cook a basic soup with a lot of foreign ingredients, telling him it was his favourite when he was a kid and he had a fever. They start taking their horses for a run in the forest, and they discover a nice clearing when Rin sometimes retracts to, when his council meetings give him too much of an headache. Osamu is always there with him. They even make fun of his brother together, to Atsumu’s complete dismay. Really, they annihilate him, sometimes.

And then there’s those heated gazes, those “accidental”, lingering touches. That almost-kiss that one time they decided to get drunk with a weird, foreign liquor.

But one day, as Osamu is accompanying him to his usual visit to the local market, he sees him smile at an elderly woman who just offered him a new written recipe to try, and his heart skips a beat.

 _Oh, yeah,_ he finally admits to himself, _I really love him_.

——————————

_And then:_

“So it’s true, then”, Atsumu finally says, after hours of the both of them being completely silent, “Yer his soulmate”. Rin briefly looks at him for the corner of his eye, but it hurts to even move his gaze from Osamu. Osamu, who’s lying still and pale, oh so pale, under a heavy blanket, unmoving if not for the slow, irregular rise and fall of his chest. The doctor said he did all he could, now he just has to wake up.

It’s true. Osamu _materialised_ in front of him to take a dagger to his stomach. Osamu is his _soulmate_. He loves Osamu, and he is his soulmate. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, because Osamu isn’t waking up. Osamu has to. He would give all his love away if it meant that Osamu got to wake up.

After Osamu passed out, he took him in his arms and moved out of the forest as fast as he could, trying desperately not to think about the trail of blood they were leaving behind. They weren’t far from the Palace, and he tried not to jostle Osamu’s boneless body too much; still, he hobbled blindly as far as his own strength would carry him, and he ended up emerging in front of a tavern near the local market, screaming for help. One day later, Osamu is still sleeping, and Rin still feels his blood under his nails.

“Ya know how we ended up in yer pretty little army?”, Atsumu asks, but he’s on a roll now, venomous words that hiss and burn, despite the quiet tone and the smiling mouth that’s pronouncing them: “We were orphans and needed a good payin’ job, as simple as that. Samu—“ he falters a little on his brother’s name, and Rin wishes he could turn back the time just a few days, because after everything, he doesn’t want to be the one making Atsumu’s voice sound so _lost_.

“…he want’d to work with food or somethin’ like that, when he was older. But he met _you_ , and it’s you that he’s been stayin’ for, for all these years”.

Atsumu stands up, then, but Rin is still transfixed by Osamu’s pale figure on the beed. He looks so much younger like this, and Rintarou really wishes for a a way to turn back time. Is he destined to bring death to whoever he holds close to his heart? And it’s a fucking irony, that if Osamu woke up now, there’s only one thing he’d be saying to him. How may wasted years between them? What value do they have, now, all the times they’ve been skirting around each other, and for what?

Atsumu makes to leave, then, and his parting words sound like a certainty: “So, start prayin’ that he wakes up, ‘cause if he doesn’t, I’m gonna strangle ya myself, that pretty crown of yers be damned”.

Yeah, Rin doesn’t think he will be able to forgive himself, either.

––––––––––––––––––––

There’s a hand through his hair. It’s a gentle touch, careful fingers that caress his scalp, and for a moment Rin thinks he’s dreaming it, and he’s tempted to let it lull him to sleep again. Sleep hardly came the first night, or the second, and Atsumu and he spent the majority of the time just… watching Osamu’s chest rise and fall. It was a testament to his still beating heart, and the only thing keeping them relatively sane. Because Osamu was still there, after his stupid, _stupid_ stunt, and now he just had to wake up, he just had to—

Rin tries to blink away his sleep: he fell asleep on his chair, next to Osamu’s bed, with his head on the covers. He lifts his head a little, and he first thing he notices is Atsumu, sleeping on the chair on the other side of the bed, his mouth open and snoring a little, his head resting against the wall. They started sleeping in turns when the exhaustion finally caught up to them, just in case Osamu would… but they must have fell asleep at the same time this turn. But if Atsumu’s sleeping as well, then who—

“ _Rin_ ”.

Rintarou has never been awake faster, sitting up so fast that the hand on his hair falls away and hits the covers with a soft _thud_.

Because that’s Osamu’s voice and, _oh_ , those are Osamu’s eyes, still unfocused, but open and alert and looking at him like he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Rin is not dreaming, because the tears he feels gathering behind his eyes carry too much weight to be anything but real.

“Osamu, _Osamu_ ”, he starts brokenly, then he has to stop and wipe a tear that’s already gone down to his upper lip. His brain seems to shortcut, every thought going in every direction, and suddenly he doesn’t know what to do. Osamu is _awake_. Osamu is talking. He’s going to be fine.

“Wait, let me call the doctor for you, okay?”, he goes on, and the last thing he wants to do is _leave_ _him_ , but it has to be done, so the doctor can visit him, and tell them that everything is going to be alright now, because it _has to_ — “Don’t talk, I can see the strain that’s—“

“I love ya”.

There. A murmur, a raspy, feeble voice that goes straight through his heart. Rin freezes mid-gesture of standing up, and, and— and Osamu loves him. _Osamu loves him_. And Rin feels like he’s been shattered and put together the right way, this time.

“Didn’t wanna die b’fore sayin’ it”.

Rin chokes on his laugh, and he surges forward to take one of Osamu’s hands in his, carful not to hurt him, but then he squeezes it, and he feels Osamu briefly squeezing back, and he starts crying in earnest.

“I love you too”, he gasps between chocked breaths, and it feels so easy to say, now, like the words have finally broken a dam. Like he could say just this one thing for the rest of his life. Because Rin loves him. Because Osamu loves him. They love each other.

Rin feels complete.

––––––––––––––––––––

“I love you, Osamu, I love you so much. It feels stupid, now, to not have said this before. But you can’t do this kind of thing to me again”.

“What, bein’ yer soulmate?”.

“You know what I mean. You can’t— you can’t just risk your life for me, like it’s nothing”.

“What, ‘cause it’s not in my job description to protect you? I’ve been doin’ it for years, Rin”.

“This is not— This was too much. You need to step down from your role”.

“Don’t play stupid with me, it’s not about that, and you know it. Tell me y’wouldn’t have done th’same, tell me you wouldn’t have launcher yerself in front of that dagger, and I’ll promise ’n a heartbeat”.

“…”

“Rin, listen to me: since we were sixteen, I’ve been standin’ right next to ya. And there’s nothin’ in this life I’d rather be doing. My place, now ‘n always, is by your side, if ya’ll have me. Please,don’t let me go”.

––––––––––––––––––––

_One more:_

Rin has an headache. Someone is trying to split his head open and press his councillors’ shouts deeper into his mind. It’s torture.

“We have to wait and see—“

“At this rate the price will go up and duplicate in less—“

“Honestly, you can’t be serious, this—“

Kita-san is silently looking at him from across the table, surely wondering just how long he’s going to endure this before he calls an end to this fairly waste of time and goes in search of Osamu.

It’s been almost a month since Osamu woke up, and his wound is still tender at times, giving him pain and not letting him run around like he would like. Obviously, the mandatory bed rest was ignored from the beginning, and to cope with his inability to to follow Rin around all day, he’s taken to pass his every standing moment in the kitchens. He’s started a competition with the head chef for the best dish for every occasion, using only in season ingredients, so now almost every meal is served with the most extravagant courses Rin has ever seen, despite the majority of them being made with common ingredients.

“We’re in need of a swift—“  
“Oh, shut up, this is totally—“

A new voice clears up, and the loud noise of someone stumbling and catching themself on the back of a chair in the same motion, somehow gets everyone’s attention.

Rin turns to his right, and yeah, Osamu is right next to him. As in, he _teleported_ straight into the council room, to the horror of every councillor present —except one. Rin knows for a fact he’s been dying to do this since their first attempt to master the art of materialising at each other’s side (they’ve been trying for a couple of days now –Osamu tiring easily– in a process of trial and error. it’s been both glorious _and_ embarassing, and yesterday evening, in one memorable occasion, Rin accidentally teleported to Osamu’s side when he was (aggressively) consoling his brother for yet another heartbreak. Honestly, Atsumu’s track record with relationship is worse than his, and he didn’t know he’s been in love with his soulmate for _years)._

He’s standing in full Royal Uniform, bored expression barely scanning the crowd as he says: “I believe this honourable meeting is adjourned”.

Utter chaos breaks out once again, but before it can get too much heated, Rintarou stands up as well and holds up one hand: “I believe he’s right. Same time tomorrow, thank you”.

The room clears up quite quickly after that, between formal bows and sidelong glances to Osamu that, for his part, continues to look straight ahead like the book description of a Guard.

It’s only when they’re alone (the last one to leave being Kita, with an amused glance their way just as he materialised out of the room), that they both look at each other and end up snickering together like little children.

“This was even better than ’n my mind”, murmurs Osamu when he calms down. Now that they’re alone, he’s hunched on himself a little, favouring one side. Rin slides one arm under his shoulders (because now he _can_. They’re _together_ ), silently inviting him to lean on him for a bit of support. Osamu doesn’t even protest, and that’s telling enough.

“Really Osamu, did you come straight from the kitchens? Why didn’t you go back to bed and rest a little?”, he murmurs, raising his other hand to gently stroke Osamu’s cheek.

The other follows the coolness of his hand with a little nudge of his head, humming relaxed.

“I’m feelin’ better, I told ya. And I had this cool new trick to try, ya know?”

Rin shakes his head, deciding to ignore for the moment his (obviously false) claims about his good health: “About that, aren’t you abusing your powers of being my soulmate?” he asks, putting a disapproving frown in place, but he has to concentrate to not burst out laughing.

“I don’t know. Am I, _yer Majesty_?” Osamu drawls out, myth dancing in his eyes, and Rin’s brain shortcuts a little because. Because—

Because he doesn’t have to block that part of him out anymore, that part that’s been _screaming_ at him for years to take Osamu’s hand, to hold him, to kiss him, to take him to bed. To go anywhere and everywhere with Osamu at his side, not as his Guard, but as simply _his_.

Osamu is his. His soulmate. His love. The last thing he wants to see before he falls asleep and the first thing he wants to see when he wakes up. Because his days have more purpose if Osamu is next to him, just by existing, and Rintarou now can’t even fathom how he could have ignored all this, this visceral _need_ to be near Osamu, for the last years.

“Rin”, Osamu murmurs against his lips, his voice calling him back (always, _always_ ) and he’s looking at him like he’s the last thing he wants to see on his deathbed (they’ve been there, they’ve done that, and Rin is so fucking _glad_ that it wasn’t it, that Osamu gets to see other things, other days. With _him_ ). 

“Tell me what yer thinking”.

“You already know”.  
“Tell me anyway”.

( _We’re soulmates_ , Osamu said to him a couple of days after their first “love quarrel” (Atsumu’s words, not his), still bedridden, but stubborn enough to be sitting up despite the clear discomfort on his face, _but I don’t care ‘bout that. I loved ya before_. Osamu was still pale and tired easily of the smallest movements, but his worn out smile was still one of the most beautiful things Rin had ever seen.

 _Also, yer f’king lazy for makin’ me do all the confessin’ stuff_ he laughed, and Rin kissed him, a delicate press of their lips just because he could, careful not to hurt him.

 _Think about all the times you’ll be materialising inside my bed_ , he joked against Osamu’s chapped lips, and then he raised a hand against his chest, where his beating heart was. He wondered if it was beating as fast as his own, a _thu-thump_ punctuating their every moment. How many beats did they have to spend together? But he looked at Osamu, then, and he knew Osamu would read it in his eyes: _yes, you’re right, I want you by my side. Yes, I’m scared something like this will happen again. Yes, I love you, and if you leave me, it will tear me apart, so you better do anything in your power to stay by my side._

Osamu laid his own hand over Rin’s, then he took it to his lips, laying a kiss to his trembling palm. He was treating Rin like he was the hurt one, with a tenderness that made him want to curl against his side and disappear from the world. Then Osamu’s smile grew bigger: _What, ya mean I won’t be sleepin’ in there all the time?,_ he shot back in mock hurt, and under those grey irises shining with more energy every passing day, it felt like a promise.)

“My place is by your side, if you’ll have me”.

Osamu smiles, then, with that private, delicate smile that makes Rintarou’s knees tremble. He, too, would give everything he has for it to be the last thing he sees when he takes his last breath. 

“Ya don’t even h’ve to ask”, he murmurs, then he trails his hands up Rin’s neck and into his hair, and kisses him.


End file.
